Locker-Based Laundry Biz Launches in Long Beach

Call it the ATM of laundry service.

Lockers4Laundry, a 24/7 dry clean and wash-and-fold business, opened its door at a storefront in Long Beach on Saturday. The swipe-card and locker-based service allows customers to drop and pick up their laundry and shoes at any time.   

"We bring convenience to our clients," owner Lisa Nohs said of Lockers4Laundry, calling the business the first of its kind on Long Island.

Follow Long Beach Patch on Facebook.    

Customers gain access to the storefront kiosk, at 78 E. Park Ave., by first registering their credit card on the company’s website and swiping the card to unlock the front door, which is under 24-hour surveillance. They have three means to place an order: via their smartphones or an iPad mounted in the store; by texting Locker4Laundry with the number of the locker where they leave their garments; or using the app of the store’s software provider, DropLocker. Customers who drop off clothes enter any four-digit code to lock the locker.

Lockers4Laundry outsources the dry cleaning and wash to a company in Island Park, and the items are returned within 24 hours. Lockers4Laundry attaches a barcode to each dry-cleaned item for tracking.

“Everything is real time,” Nohs said. “As soon as a driver picks up [the laundry to take to Island Park], it relays a message automatically to a system and informs the client that their bag has been picked up, so they’re updated from the point of pick up to the point of delivery.”

Once a client’s laundry is cleaned and returned to the kiosk in Long Beach, he receives an email and a text notifying him that his laundry is ready for pickup, as well as his new locker number and four-digit pin code. Each returned bag bears the customer’s name and a barcode.

Billed as a “green cleaner,” Lockers4Laundry provides first-time customers with reusable bags. Customers pay per piece for dry cleaning and per pound for wash-and-fold items.

Nohs said the business is the first of its kind on Long Island. “Our partners are the only ones offering this kind of locker-based system,” she said of DropLocker.

Nohs had been searching for a startup business but never found one that she really wanted to invest in until her husband was online and discovered LaundryLocker, a company that employs similar technology at 800 locations across San Francisco.

Now Nohs plans to expand her business across Long Island, starting with a new storefront in Rockville Centre come October.

“We’re gearing more toward the north shore and then eventually we’ll go to Suffolk County,” she said. “And we’re also planning on expanding into Queens.”